


Reforged

by Cleo_Calliope



Series: The Genesis Project [2]
Category: Darkest Powers - Kelley Armstrong
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate POV, Alternate Point of View, Canon Compliant, Canon Rewrite, Gen, Horror, Rewrite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:55:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22828294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cleo_Calliope/pseuds/Cleo_Calliope
Summary: "We used to be a team, Derek.  Remember that?"  (The events of 'Divided' from Simon's point of view.)
Series: The Genesis Project [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1630828
Comments: 24
Kudos: 20





	1. Hide and Seek

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, I know I said it would probably be a little while before I started on the next story in this series. But... well... I've just be SO beyond chuffed at finishing a second full length novel, and a LONGER one at that, that I couldn't move on to other projects just yet. Besides, Simon has decided he wants to have his say and so, that's that. Fellow writers will understand exactly what I'm talking about.
> 
> This story is going to cover the events of 'Divided' from Simon's point of view. So, not another novel here. I'm only expecting it to be five chapters all told since 'Divided' isn't all that long a story to begin with.
> 
> There's one other reason I'm inspired to keep going with this series for right now. And you want to know what that reason is? **The feedback!** Yes, deciding to keep pushing ahead with this for now is a direct result of the wonderful feedback I got on finishing 'Summoned'.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "See, this was _exactly_ the reason I’d been so afraid to leave my brother behind."

**1  
Hide and Seek**

  


_I’d been scared when I’d left Lyle House but as I turned back to the fog filled hallway and stepped up beside my brother, I wasn’t scared any longer._

_"Show time,” I told him with a grin._

_We had this. Between the two of us… Yeah, we totally had this._

  


The door closed behind Chloe leaving Derek and I standing together as Davidoff and his team came at us.

As soon as I could see the fainest hint of a figure coming around the far corner I cast another fog spell. The figure immediately disappeared as it grew impossible to see more than a foot or so in front of you. Following my brother’s dim form we made our way down another hallway and away from our pursuers.

Away from the exit too, unfortunately, but there really wasn’t much of a choice there. They’d find it and look out before we could have reached the warehouse where Chloe and Rae were waiting. I just hoped like hell that they would get there in time.

I could hear the people behind us coughing and calling out to each other. I wondered vaguely where they thought the fog was coming from.

Then Davidoff’s voice came from behind us. 

“There’s an exit here. Mike? Sue? Go out and take a look around. I’ll—”

We had to draw them away. Derek was ahead of me there, as he usually was.

“Move it, guys!” he said in a kind of stage whisper, loud enough to make sure he was heard while sounding like he was trying to be quiet. “In that room. Go!”

He didn’t have to tell me what to do. As we reached the nearest door Derek opened it and then shut it again while I cast another fog spell to give us just a bit more time before they realized we weren’t in the room. It occurred to me then that our shoes weren’t exactly silent, the slap of heels or the squeak of the soles on the linoleum floor could give us away. We needed to be silent if they were going to fall for it even for the few moments of leeway this ruse would give us. Pulling off my sneakers I nodded to Derek who followed my lead before we dashed down the hall. Our socks made no sound at all and I could hear the searchers behind us stumbling around in the fog, trying to find the room we’d supposedly gone into. 

Luckily the place was big, with lots of halls going in just about every direction. 

Who had designed this place? Still, it worked in our favor so I wasn’t complaining.

When Derek called out again I realized what his plan was. Pull the trick over and over until they no longer checked, then when they didn’t is when we actually would take cover. A Chicken Little means of confusing our pursuers. Simple and basic, but effective. So I cast another fog spell as Derek opened and closed the nearest door before we dashed off again.

Listening, Derek nodded in satisfaction as we headed down yet another hallway. “They only sent one person in to check while the others kept moving,” he told me softly.

The next time Derek said they only just glanced into the room but even with the fog they didn’t bother doing more than that.

So we pulled the trick one last time. Only this time, for real.

Taking refuge in the room we huddled behind a desk so that if they just glanced in again they wouldn’t see us. We needn’t have bothered, as it turned out. Since Davidoff and his companions went straight past the room without even cracking the door open.

When they were out of earshot we crept out of our hiding place and headed back the way we had come. Only when we reached the end of the hall Derek turned toward the front of the building.

“The exit’s this way,” I said, confused. Derek’s sense of direction was even better than mine. There was no way he could be lost.

“Yeah, and it’s the only one we passed,” he said. “Meaning they’re going to make a beeline for it when they figure out we headed back. We won’t make it to the warehouse before they can look out and see us. There’s no place else we can go once we’re through that door.”

I didn’t like it. I wanted to get out of this building and back to Chloe and Rae. However, if Derek said that we didn’t have time to get to the warehouse before they saw us, he was probably right. I motioned for him to lead the way. He’d have some plan in mind for how to to get us out of here and for now it was probably in both of our best interests for me to go along with it. 

So I followed him as he lead us back toward the front and the doors through which we’d entered. However, when we got to the last corner before they came into view, Derek held out his hand to stop me.

He pressed himself to the wall and carefully looked around the corner, making sure not to be seen by whoever was apparently there. Following creeping over I peered cautiously around to see a man and a woman standing by the doors, clearly keeping watch just in case we did exactly what we were doing.

Retreating back a few steps so we were out of earshot, I looked at my brother.

“Can we take them?” 

“Maybe if we can separate them,” Derek said, frowning.

No sooner than he’d spoken we heard loud sound of a radio squawking. I could hear the murmur of voices but that was all. Derek’s looked surprised as he listened.

“It’s Davidoff,” he told me. “He wants one of them to stay guarding this entrance while the other guards the one at the back.”

“Perfect timing,” I said, grinning.

Ducking into a room we listened as the woman headed back towards the other entrance while her male companion remained behind.

“I’ll take him,” Derek whispered as we got back to the corner. “You wait here.”

“I can —” I started, but he cut me off.

“No.”

I knew the expression on Derek’s face. He was dead set on being the one to take the risks here, like he always was. Glaring I wondered if it was worth the fight. Still, it was true that it was easier for one person to sneak up on someone that two. However, when he motioned me to go back down the hall a bit I just looked at him and pointedly took up station just on the other side of the corner. I’d be right there, ready to help if needed. I could see him deciding that that was a fight it wasn’t worth having.

Derek peered around the corner for a moment before slipping out from cover. I stepped up to where he had been, watching as Derek moved forward into the open. The man’s back was turned toward us as he scanned the hall to his left. 

It was then, as the man turned shifted just a bit that I caught a glimpse of what he held in his right hand and my heart leapt into my throat. 

Darting out I grabbed my brother’s t-shirt, tugging him back.

“He has a gun,” I mouthed, pointing.

Derek only nodded, letting me know that he’d seen it before waving me back. 

I could only stare at him. He’d seen the gun and was still going to go ahead with his plan? Then I realized that, of course, he hadn’t seen the gun as a reason not to keep going. It was only his own safety that he’d be risking, after all. 

Yanking on his shirt, I was sure my expression told him I wasn’t backing down on this.

Masking a slight face he followed back around the corner and far enough down the hall that we couldn’t be heard.

I turned on Derek. “He has a gun. What the hell were you thinking? That your odds were decent enough to give it a shot?”

His silence was answer enough and I wanted to shout at him. 

See, this was _exactly_ the reason I’d been so afraid to leave my brother behind. He just didn’t seem to care about himself at all. When it was my safety on the line he lost his head, but when it was his own he decided that jumping a guy with a gun in his hand was perfectly reasonable. Probably thought that even if the guy did spot him before Derek got to him that any first shot would likely go wild since hitting a moving target is actually a lot harder than it looks in the movies. 

If I’d pulled something like that, he’d have had my head. 

I didn’t understand, would never understand, why he seemed to value himself so little. To be honest, for all his self-confidence he had never placed any great value on himself. It wasn’t that he doubted his abilities, just his worth. Something that I’d watch get worse while we were stuck in Lyle House and they poured their poison into his ears.

There wasn’t time to try hashing anything out at this point, though. Swallowing back all the words I wanted to say, I followed as Derek lead us on another retreat.

“There have to be windows in here somewhere or possibly even another door,” he said. “We’ll have check each room as we pass.”

He didn’t sound thrilled about that and I didn’t blame him. The longer we kept wandering around inside this building the more likely it would be that we’d run straight into our pursuers. This was taking a long longer than I’d thought it would.

I could tell that Derek was worried, going faster and searching in a less systematic way then I was used to. Who he was more worried about, us or the girls, I didn’t know. Both probably. How worried he actually was only became apparent, however, when he glanced around another room and almost left it before I stopped him.

“Uh, bro?” When he looked back I pointed at the hatch in the ceiling. It wasn’t the way out we needed since it went up instead of out, but at least checking seemed like a good idea.

I could see Derek scowl, annoyed with himself for not spotting it.

He boosted me up into the darkness above before using his own much more developed upper body strength to lift himself up. 

Yeah, okay, I could admit to being a bit envious when he did things like that. 

Closing the hatch after him, he plunged us into what looked to me like absolute blackness. Blackness than _really_ stank as well as being hot and airless. Mostly, though, it just stank. Bad.

“Guano,” Derek told me softly. I could hear him shifting around and I realized he was putting his shoes back on. “This place us completely full of bat shit. That’s what that smell is.”

“That’s good, right?” I said, pulling my sneakers back on as well. I sure as hell didn’t want to be walking around in an area full of bat shit without shoes on.

He grunted by way of answer. “If you can stand the smell, we should stay up here.”

Stay here? “Um, why?” I asked, confused.

“Its the best hiding place we’ve…”

I interrupted him. “Guano, bro? Bat shit means bats. Bats mean there’s a way out.” I slapped him on the back. I’d met to slap him upside the head but in the dark I missed. “You’re the science guy, aren’t you?”

The annoyance in his voice was clear when he spoke. “Yeah, I’m just—”

“Freaked out and not thinking straight,” I said, cutting him off again. “And, yes, just because a bat can get in, doesn’t mean we can get out. Still, a lot of bat shit means a lot of bats.”

A whole colony of bats weren’t likely to make their home someplace hard to get into. So, there was a good chance that there was something more than a small crack in the ceiling in here somewhere. Finding it in this blackness though wasn’t going to be easy.

However, Derek got up and started walking away with apparent confidence. 

“Wait! You can see?” I demanded, grabbing his arm.

“Yeah,” he said, before he seemed to realize what that meant. Derek’s night vision was a hell of a lot better than mine but even he couldn’t see in as complete darkness. “Which means there’s some source of light up here,” he grumbled, his irritation with himself clear in his tone.

Damn, he was more upset than I’d realized. What the hell had happened tonight?

“Hold on to my shirt,” he told me and I grabbed on, allowing him to guide me through the pitch black of the attic. We were careful to step lightly. While the floor up here didn’t squeak, thank God, we still had to be careful about not alerting the searchers below that this space was even up here. After a little while though my eyes began to adjust enough that I could at least see him in front of him, allowing me to follow without having to hold on. 

As we headed farther through the heat and smell I found it slowly getting easier to see. We were clearly heading in the right direction. 

It wasn’t until we passed under several support beams that we finally found what we’d been looking for.

By now, I could see well enough to clearly see the vent in the ceiling that had long ago been broken. It was only half attached and around it a good amount of light was coming in. Light that was gray rather than silver. Was that dawn? 

Derek was scowling up at the vent, clearly unhappy. 

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Think you can you get through that?”

Deciding again that this wasn’t the time for explanations, I examined the hole and nodded. I was pretty sure it would be large enough for me to shimmy through. Which was when I realized what must have had Derek scowling. It was going to be a squeeze for me, meaning it would be way too small for him.

Still, that wasn’t a huge issue. It was already broken, it wouldn’t be hard to break it further. Although, I did worry, as I’m sure he did, about how much noise he might make doing so.

Luckily, when we climbed the support beams to get to the vent we could see that it was only barely attached any more It took little effort for someone of Derek’s strength to pull it off entirely and it didn’t actually make that much sound.

Shifting himself upward, Derek poked his head through and scanned the roof outside.

Then he motioned me over and gave me a boost up through the new hole in the ceiling.

“Don’t —” he started, but I cut him off.

“— stand up and call attention to myself. I know.” I glared at him. Did he really think I was that stupid? I could tell he was as irritated by the look I gave him as I’d been by his suggestion that I was stupid enough to let us be seen. Yes, part of me knew that he was just being overly careful as always. That it wasn’t personal. Still, it was annoying as hell for him keep snapping orders at me when I knew what I was doing. 

Dad had taught both of us how to avoid detection, not just him.

Giving him one last dark look, I pulled myself up onto the roof and into the gray pre-dawn light.


	2. Rooftop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You don’t tell me when there’s a problem, not anymore. You just pull out the 'everything’s fine' card and expect me to be happy with that. Even when I can see for myself that it’s bullshit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here we go. I am continuing to work on this. YAY! 
> 
> So, what do people think of how I'm writing Simon's internal voice? He's so much a different character from Derek that I'm finding the shift to be a little hard.

**2  
Rooftop**

  


The roof was flat and I crouched low to avoid making an obvious silhouette against the rapidly lightening sky and waited while Derek pulled himself up beside me. It was a downright cold in the early morning and I worried a little about him not having so much as a jacket to keep him warm. He wasn’t as susceptible to the cold as I was, but still. 

We both waited in silence as we listened for any indication that we’d been heard, scanning the area around us for signs we’d been spotted. 

There was nothing. I was about to say so when a truck pulled up to the gates.

Derek reached out and grabbed my arm as though I’d started to make a dash forward to get a better look. I glared pointedly. I hadn’t made any such motion since it would be a good way to attract attention.

A larger man got out of the truck and unlocked the gates. He pushed them back, before getting back in the truck and heading for a parking lot that was probably for the employees, leaving the gate wide open behind him.

I turned to Derek, grinning. “The factory’s opening for the day. Davidoff and his guys are going to have to leave now.”

“It’s Sunday,” Derek said, frowning.

“So? Overtime.”

The guy had just pointedly opened the gates for the day and there was no way he was with Davidoff and his lot if he had the keys to this place. 

I started pushing to my feet.

“Let’s go get Chloe and Rae.”

“Not yet,” Derek said, pulling me back down.

“What?”

“Just hold on.”

“Hold on? It’s been over an hour. We need to—”

“They’ll be fine.”

“Yeah? Are you sure?”

“She was supposed to go with you,” he growled, clearly angry. “That was the plan. She screwed up the plan.”

I stared at him. Was he kidding? 

“Excuse me?” I asked. “Are you saying Chloe deserves to get caught because she stayed behind to make sure you were okay?”

“Course not,” he snapped back. “But if she’d followed the plan, none of this would have happened.”

“How the hell do you know that? Those guys were on our tails as soon as Rae and I got here. No way they had time to assemble a team that fast after you were spotted.”

“Okay, but still —” 

I cut him off.

“But still it’s her fault. Somehow, some way, it’s Chloe’s fault because it’s always Chloe’s fault.”

“I never —”

“What’s your problem with her anyway?” I demanded. “In the last few days, she’s learned she’s a necromancer. She’s discovered there’s a whole supernatural world out there. And she’s adjusted. I couldn’t have done that. I’d be useless. Freaked out and in total denial.”

Frankly the idea of what Chloe had been through in the last week kind of blew my mind when I thought about it. I’d tried to put myself in her shoes, imagining I had to accept that there were really little green men everywhere and I was actually an alien or something. It sounded silly in my head right up to the point when I’d sat down with her that night she’d come to Derek’s and my room. Trying to explain about the different races, something so basic to how I’d been raised… Yeah, it didn’t seem silly after that.

“She’s coping well,” Derek said. “I said that this morning.”

“To me. Not to her,” I pointed out before shaking my head. There was no point in this. “Never mind. Whatever your problem with Chloe is —”

“I don’t have a problem with Chloe,” he snapped. “You’re right. If we can get to her, we should. As soon as possible.”

Turning his back on me he carefully shifted over to the edge of the roof closest to the warehouse. I followed and inwardly swore when I saw Dr. Davidoff and Mrs. Talbot standing directly between us and where we needed to be. No way we could get out that door without them seeing us and it would be equally impossible for us to use the front entrance and slip around. It was a clear shot across the asphalt to the warehouse, all of it in their line of sight as they stood talking.

Derek backed away from the edge again and I followed.

“We have to wait it out,” he told me, not sounding any happier about it than I felt.

I stared at the warehouse, wondering if Chloe really was still in there. Dr. Davidoff and Mrs. Talbot were standing around talking and hadn’t even looked toward the warehouse so I thought it was safe to assume that they hadn’t been spotted or captured.

“You’re right,” I admitted finally. “She’s fine. We told her to wait, so she’ll wait, and if that’s not safe, she’ll find a hidey-hole and come back later. We have a plan. She’ll stick to it.”

It wasn’t all just me trying to make us both feel better either. Chloe wasn’t stupid and I was confident that she would follow the plan. It was Rae I was worried about. I just hoped that the clear friendship that had grown up between them would keep Rae from doing anything that would get Chloe into too much trouble.

Trying to find a place to sit where we wouldn’t be easily spotted by someone on the ground while keeping an eye on the warehouse in case Chloe and Rae broke cover turned out to be more or less impossible. The roof was flat, sure, but there was a lot up there. I wasn’t entirely sure what it all was. Air conditioning units and things like that probably. The problem was that the only way to make sure no one could see us from the ground was to hide among these, which also blocked us from being able to see the warehouse clearly.

Dr. Davidoff and Mrs. Talbot had been far enough out that we could see them for a while before they moved closer to the building again, or possibly back inside. We couldn’t tell from where we were and it wasn’t worth taking the risk of being seen just to find out. That sun had risen and it would be all to easy for someone to see us if we moved around too much.

All we could do now was wait.

So we settled down among the pipes and metal things to do just that.

We were both quite for a while, me calming down. I shouldn’t have gone off on him like that. We were both worried, tired and stressed out. It lead to us both being too sensitive and snapping at each other for no good reason. I knew that was what was really behind Derek’s grousing about Chloe.

“What happened?” I asked finally. “What went wrong?”

“I don’t know,” Derek said, shaking his head. It was clear that he hated admitting it. “They were looking for you so fast, that’s what gets me.”

“No,” I said. “I mean, yeah they were, but that’s not what I meant. Back at the house, when Chloe found you.”

I looked him over, the torn and filthy t-shirt, the grass stained jeans. There was dirt under his nails I realized now that the sun was up enough that I could see him clearly. He was pale and the circles under his eyes almost made him look like he’d been hit in the face.

All in all, he looked awful.

“Are you feeling okay?” I asked.

Derek grimaced slightly. “I am now. Look…” he broke off as if uncertain how to continue. That was when I knew this wasn’t small.

I looked away, swallowing down a sudden pulse of anger. “You’ve been keeping stuff from me.” I didn’t even bother to make it a question.

“I didn’t think it was a big deal,” Derek objected. “I thought I was having an allergic reaction to something, as soon as you were gone and I could focus on something else I’d figure out what it was and I’d be fine.”

“You didn’t think it was a big deal because it was about you,” I said, turning to glare at him. “You always do this. Something was wrong, you didn’t seem well. But no, it’s nothing to worry about. If I’d been sick and didn’t tell you, acted like it was nothing, you’d be all over me.”

“You don’t have my metabolism,” he snapped back. “Being sick is more serious for you. Especially because of your diabetes.”

“Dammit!” It was all I could do not to shout it. “I’m not an invalid and I don’t need or want special consideration here. I’m sick and tired of you using my condition as a reason to shove me onto the sidelines. And don’t say you don’t, because you _do_. You act like you’re here to protect me from the world. Well, news flash bro. You aren’t. We’re supposed to be partners. We’re supposed to have each other’s backs. But you won’t let me have your back.”

“You’ve always had my back,” he muttered. “I trust you to keep an eye on me, always have.”

“Really?” I asked. “Because whenever the shit hits the fan, when there’s any kind of real trouble, you try to shove me into a corner. You don’t tell me when there’s a problem, not anymore. You just pull out the 'everything’s fine' card and expect me to be happy with that. Even when I can see for myself that it’s bullshit.”

Derek looked away, silent. He didn’t argue which was as good as admitting that I was right.

It was a couple of minutes before he spoke again and when he did the apparent non sequitor threw me for a loop.

“Remember last week when I had that awful muscle spasm in my leg that woke me up in the middle of the night?”

“Um, yeah,” I said, wondering what the hell this was about. “You said you thought it was because you weren’t getting enough exercise.” I couldn’t keep the accusation out of my voice.

“It was what I thought,” he told me. “Even when they kept getting worse, I just assumed it was the long term effects of not getting the kinds of physical activity I need.”

“They got worse?” I demanded. “See, this is exactly what was talking about. Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”

Derek glared at me. “Because you would have doubled down on staying, on leaving dad and Chloe to their fates because of me. So yes, I did hide it from you because I knew how you’d react. I had to, for them.”

My hands clenched into fists but I wasn’t sure how much more time we actually had up here and I decided it was more important for me to know what happened tonight than to have this fight again. I could yell at him about the rest later.

“What happened?” I demanded.

“Night before last I started in with itching,” he said. “It’s why I was so certain it was an allergic reaction to something. Then, last night —” glancing up at what was now full daylight around us, he corrected himself “— night before last, I started running a fever.”

“You what?” Derek never got sick.

“It went away and I felt a little better yesterday so I thought it was over.” He shook his head. “Then it came back last night and I knew if you saw me in the state I was in, you wouldn’t leave. I thought that if I hid there was a chance Chloe and Rae could still get you to leave, to follow the plan, anyway.”

“Damn right I wouldn’t have left,” I hissed. “Would you have?”

Derek’s lips compressed and I could almost see the thought in his mind that if I’d been sick it would have been different. Of course, it would have. 

“I wasn’t going to risk the plan,” he said flatly. 

It took me a good minute to get my temper back under control, forcing my jaw to unclench and my hands to uncurl from fists.

“Where were you?”

“Behind the shed out back,” he answered promptly. “The cool night air had helped the night before so I thought it might help again.”

“Did it?”

“No.”

Derek rubbed a hand down his face.

“I…” he broke off and for the first time I looked past my own anger to see just how upset Derek was. And he was upset. That hand had trembled ever so slightly and there was something in his expression. Something I couldn’t quite name but looked a lot like fear. 

My own fury disappeared as a bolt of real fear went through me. Derek never got sick, never ran fevers. This was bad.

“Are you okay, bro?” I asked. Which was a stupid question, I thought. It was clear that whatever was going on, he wasn’t okay. 

“Yes and no,” he admitted, refusing to look at me. “I… I started to change.”

“You what?” I demanded, then immediately slapped a hand over my mouth when I realized how loud that had been. Derek glared and we both waited, listening for any sign of life around us. There was none aside from another car pulling through the gates and heading toward the employee lot. That made ten now, definitely a working day here, even if it was a Sunday.

Derek had started to change.

That took a moment to wrap my head around. I mean, yeah, I always knew it would happen someday. Derek was a werewolf. Sooner or later he’d grow into the ability to shift into a wolf. A very large wolf, considering his body mass.

“Are you okay?” I demanded again, struggling to keep myself calm. 

Derek shifted slightly, looking away from me. Before he did I was sure of the embarrassment I saw in his expression along with other less identifiable emotions. If there was one thing Derek didn’t like talking about, it was his race. 

It wasn’t that I didn’t understand, at least to a certain extent. I’d seen the way a few family friends had started to draw away from him in fear as he’d started to get tall, to bulk up. They were afraid of him because of what he was. It hadn’t been as big a deal when we were little and he was the undersized kid who always looked like he needed a few good meals. When puberty hit and he started growing… that was when things had changed. People who’d known us nearly all our lives started to act nervous around him, as though they expected him to turn into a ravaging beast any second and tear their throats out. Derek tried to pretend that it didn’t bother him, but I knew better. 

It was probably one of the reasons Gill and Davidoff had been able to get into his head so easily. At least, I thought that it was. He’d already been preconditioned by the fear of other supernaturals, even people who’d known him since he was a kid, to see himself as something less than safe. They were afraid of him and so, over time, he’d come to see himself as worth being afraid of. 

“This isn’t supposed to be happening yet,” I said. It should have been a least a couple more years before he’d have to start worry about that. “Does that mean that something’s wrong?” 

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “It’s too soon and it… didn’t work.”

“What do you mean it didn’t work?”

“A change started, then it stopped and reversed. I don’t know why.”

Derek seemed to hunch in on himself and I could see how much he didn’t want to tell me what had happened. I remembered dad sitting with Derek in the living room, telling him that he’d be there with him when the time came, that it wasn’t anything to be afraid of. I also remembered dad telling me that Derek would need us at that point because Derek was a lot more afraid of it than he was willing to let on. 

There were so many questions I had, so many things we needed to talk about. I’d put off making Derek discuss his change wit me for the main reason that I knew he didn’t want to and, besides, we had plenty of time to worry about that later. There’d been no point in pushing him to talk about something he didn’t want to when we had years yet before we had to.

“Are you okay?” I asked again.

“At the moment I feel fine. When it stopped and reversed it took the fever, the itching and the muscle spasms with it.”

I wanted to ask more, needed to, but at that point Derek got up and headed back towards the broken vent. 

“We’ve been up here long enough,” he said stiffly. “There’s a ton of employees now so Davidoff and the others have to have left. We have to do same if we don’t want to run the risk of getting caught by the employees here.”

He was right. He was using it as an excuse not to talk about this any more, but he was still right.

I followed.


	3. Following the Trail

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “From their scents I’d say they were here less than half an hour ago.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As with the rest of this story, this chapter is entirely unbetaed. Please let me know if you see any screw ups. I'd really appreciate it.
> 
> _Here, feedback, feedback, feedback!_

**3  
Following the Trail**

  


It took us a while to make our way out of the building and back to the warehouse. There may have been no sign of Dr. Davidoff or any of the others, but that didn’t mean we weren’t careful. Besides, there were workers around now and we weren’t keen on having them spot us either so we took a circuitous rout to get there, ducking behind equipment and doing our best to stay out of sight.

When we finally did get there I all but burst in.

“Chloe? Rae?”

There was no answer. Part of me had been sure there wouldn’t be but I’d hoped just the same.

We looked and while it was clear that they had been there, it was equally clear that they’d left. 

“We only just missed them,” Derek said, frustration clear in his tone. “From their scents I’d say they were here less than half an hour ago.”

Which meant that if we’d come when I’d first suggested it, we would have caught them before they left. I didn’t say it though. Derek had been right to be cautious and besides, I could read his expression. He’d already figured that out and was kicking himself over it enough already.

The scent trail, being so fresh, was easy for him to track. They’d left the warehouse by an open back window and from there headed toward the facility’s back gate.

Unfortunately, it seemed that when the factory was open the back gate had a security guard on duty. Even I couldn’t think up a good reason for us to have been inside the factory grounds early on a Sunday morning. Not one that would get us passed that guard without trouble.

Abandoning the scent trail we headed along the fence until we were confident the guard wouldn’t spot us.

I only just got started climbing, however, when we heard a shout behind us.

“Hey!” The security guard. He’d seen us after all and he and a guy in a suit were running towards us.

“Go,” Derek hissed at me. “I’m right behind you.”

Even starting after me, Derek reached the top first, swinging himself over and looking back at me.

I was struggling. Not only didn’t I have his physical strength but I had a heavy backpack on weighing me down.

Derek reached down to me. “Pass the bag over,” he said.

“You there, stop!” the guard yelled, just as I swung the bag off my shoulder. He was closer than I’d realized and I made the mistake of glancing back. The moment of inattention cost me. My foot slipped and the bag fell from my hand as I grabbed onto the fence to keep from falling.

“Your insulin!” Derek gasped.

“Just the backup,” I told him, hauling myself up to the top. “I’ve got my kit in my pocket.”

Derek was already shaking his head.

“Go,” he said. “I’ll get —”

I grabbed his arm as he started to climb back over the top.

“No.”

There wasn’t time. A second glance and it was obvious that there was no way he could get to the bag before they got to him. Giving it up for lost he helped me over the top of the fence.

We hit the ground running and kept going until we found someplace to hide. 

No one came after us.

Still, it was some time before Derek was sure enough of that fact for us to head back toward the factory. Luckily, we didn’t have to go back all the way to the gate before he caught Chloe’s scent again. We followed it back the way we had come, through the neighborhood Lyle House was in and out to the commercial district on the other side. It was good thinking as, now that the sun was up and some of the shops open, no one would question a couple of teenagers out and about. Derek and I didn’t attract any attention and I very much doubted that Chloe and Rae would have either.

The problem was that when we got there, the scent trail didn’t lead to one of the shops but to that rarity in the modern world, a payphone. 

“Shit,” I muttered, pushing my way into the tiny booth beside Derek. “Who’d they call? Try — No, there isn’t a redial button. Shit!”

From there the trail led to the corner. And shopped.

“Shit, shit, shit.”

I kicked at the curb in annoyance while Derek went back to the payphone again, trying to determine whether it was Chloe or Rae who’d made a call.

I didn’t know who she might have called, but calling anyone could prove disastrous.

Derek stomped back over, no happier than I was.

“It’s hard to tell for sure,” he told me. “But I’m pretty positive it was Chloe who used the phone. She must have called her dad.”

“Her aunt,” I corrected. ”Her dad’s never around. He went back overseas as soon as he got her into Lyle House. There’s a housekeeper, but she doesn’t like Chloe very much. Chloe won’t go there.”

Derek frowned, as though annoyed by this information. “Do you know her aunt’s name?”

“Lauren Fellows,” I told him. “She’s a doctor. Look up Dr. Fellows.”

Derek’s frown grew darker but there was something else in his expression I couldn’t read.

“Derek?”

“Nothing,” he assured me. “Just . . . The name sounds familiar.”

“Probably because you heard them use it at the house,” I told him. “She’s the one who came to get Chloe for breakfast that day.”

“Right.” Derek didn’t look entirely convinced by that but then he shook it off.

There was an actual phone book at the payphone. I almost laughed. It had been a long time since I’d used a physical phonebook and I honestly couldn’t remember when I’d last seen a payphone, much less used one. The fact that it was there and that it worked turned out to be the extent of our luck. Doctors, like lawyers, rarely listed their home addresses or phone numbers. It made sense. They’d probably get calls all the time from patients if they did list their numbers. We’d never had a listed number and it wasn’t only because we were always on the move. Dad said he’d never had a listed number after taking the bar exam, just in case.

The only number we could find for Dr. Lauren Fellows was the number for the clinic where she worked.

Talking to people was my strong suit, not Derek’s. I was the sweet talker of the two of us, the one who was usually able to get people to tell me things they shouldn’t or let us in places we weren’t supposed to go. This time, however, was no dice. I called but no matter what I said the receptionist had no intention of divulging personal information about one of the clinic’s doctors.

It had been a long-shot, I knew that. So, I wasn’t too surprised when it didn’t work. 

“Okay,” I said, after I hung up. “If she went to her aunt, they’d take her to Lyle House, right? So that’s where we go.”

It was clear that no matter what else, Chloe’s aunt believed in Chloe’s supposed diagnosis. She’d firmly believe that anything Chloe said to the contrary would be the result of her delusions. They were close, but because of that I was pretty sure her aunt would see it as her duty to get Chloe back into care as soon as possible.

“At least, that’s one place they will most definitely not be looking for us,” Derek commented wryly as we headed back to where we’d started.

  


*** * ***

  


Obviously we couldn’t just walk up to the front door in broad daylight. Once we got back into the neighborhood we cut through backyards until we were right next door. That’s when we realized that all the windows were dark.

Ducking behind a shed at the back of the neighbor’s yard we considered our options.

The morning was cold and there had been a frost the night before. The sun still had some small amount of heat to it, though, which warmed the frost leaving some areas with a low-lying fog along the ground. 

“If I cast a bit more fog, making it just a bit denser I bet I could get right up to the house and look in,” I suggested.

Derek, predictably, shook his head. 

“You cast the spell and I’ll sneak up,” he said. “I’m quieter.”

“I’m smaller,” I objected. “I can stay lower to the ground and what’s more,” I continued talking over his attempt to object. “I can cast the spell again as needed.”

“I’ll be fast,” he started again.

“And if a car comes by or there’s a gust of wind that makes the fog too thin to hide you, what would you do then?” I demanded.

He didn’t have an answer to that but I could tell he was going to keep fighting me on this.

“I’m not helpless,” I snapped. “And I’m not useless. So, stop treating me like I am. _I_ am the best choice for getting close up to the house and _you_ are the best choice for keeping watch so no one sneaks up on me. We used to be a team, Derek. Remember that? Remember trusting that I could actually do things to help?”

Derek looked away, clearly swallowing back whatever angry retort he’d been about to shoot back. I could see him calming himself down and actually thinking about what I’d said. Finally, he nodded before giving me a pointed glare.

“No taking unnecessary chances,” he told me. “You get caught and it’s over. You’re the only one who can find dad.”

As if he had to remind me. It seemed like it was all I thought about any more. 

I was the only one who could cast the spell to locate him. I was the only one who really had a chance at tracking him down. Then again, I supposed it was fair.

Dad had warned me time and again that my mouth was going to get me into trouble some day. I just couldn’t seem not to be a smart alack, couldn’t not be a sarcastic little shit when someone pissed me off. And if there was one thing that pissed me off, it was bullies. Still, it never occurred to me that day on the playground that I was in any danger, that mouthing off to a group of racist, redneck kids could have dire consequences for all of us.

We’d only moved to that area a couple months before and the school was still trying to figure out how to deal with Derek already being in college level math classes. He’d had to stay after to discuss it with one of the teachers and I’d just been waiting for him on the basketball court, shooting hoops. There had been three of them, all older than me. Juniors or seniors. They’d been giving me shit about the fact that I’m mixed race. Seriously, who cares that my grandfather immigrated from Korea? They did, though.

It was typical school yard bullying. A problem only in as much as I didn’t take well to that kind of bullshit. Instead of backing down, I gave as good as I got, making it clear I didn’t see them as any kind of threat.

When one of them pulled something from his pocket, I wasn’t sure what it was at first. Even when he flicked his wrist and it caught the light, it still didn’t register for a moment that it was a knife. This wasn’t that kind of school, the kind with weapons and knife fights. I didn’t have time to do more than be shocked.

Derek was just… there. He’d been coming around the school to meet me and seen the guy pull the knife.

He picked the kid up and threw him away from me, not even looking to see where he landed before punching one of the others. The third one ran off, followed by the second after he’d scrambled back to his feet.

The first guy though… The first guy didn’t get up.

He was lying at the base of the wall Derek had inadvertently thrown him into. When last we’d heard, they still weren’t sure if that kid would ever walk again.

I didn’t feel bad about what happened to him. Yeah, I know I should. I know I should feel sorry for him, for the bad choices that will likely effect him for the rest of his life. But honestly, I don’t. I looked in his eyes just before Derek got there and I know he hadn’t pulled that knife just to scare me, he intended to use it. If Derek hadn’t got there in time I would have been the one heading to the hospital that day. Maybe even the morgue. So no, I don’t feel bad about what happened to him. 

What I feel bad about is that it’s Derek who has to live with the guilt I don’t feel. He protected me. He saw the knife and panicked. I know he did. He was afraid for me and he just reacted, trying to get that guy and his knife away from me before I was hurt. 

The event had ended up in the local papers. Since Derek was a minor they couldn’t use his name but they could and did give enough information about us that anyone looking would have a good chance of recognizing us. 

Since dad disappeared the next day, it was clear that that was exactly what had happened.

In the three months since, I’d watched while Gill and the others used my brother’s guilt over what happened to warp his view of himself into something horrible, watched them take what was no more than a tragic accident and turn it into the event by which Derek defined himself.

Dad warned me that my mouth would get me into trouble, but it shouldn’t have been Derek who paid the highest price for it.

What was fair, was that it was me who had to find dad, had to try to make this right as best I could. I never forgot that, not for one second.

I turned my attention back to the matter at hand and, after casting another fog spell to thicken the natural fog around us, I allowed Derek to boost me over the fence and into Lyle House’s backyard.

As it turned out, there was no danger in getting close to the house. I was able to get a good look inside at the dinning room and the media room before climbing up onto the back porch and looking in the kitchen windows.

“Empty,” I told Derek when I rejoined him behind the shed at the back of a neighbor’s yard. “That must mean they only had Tori left, so they moved her to another home. So they didn’t catch Chloe and Rae.”

“Or they did, which is why they moved them all to another home,” Derek suggested.

It was possible. Lyle House’s security had clearly proven to be compromised.

“I like my explanation better,” I told him.

I looked back toward the house, wondering if we could break in and get Derek’s jacket. He needed more clothes than he had and, for that matter, so did I. Would they have packed up our stuff and moved it out of there this fast? I doubted it, so it would seem likely that it was still in there. Was it worth the risk of trying to get to it?

Derek was talking I realized but only caught the end of what he was saying. “…let her go home. Reward for turning us in.”

“What?” I asked, turning back.

“You said those guys came after you right away,” he explained. “There wasn’t time for Gill to notify them after she saw us. And what the hell was Gill doing at the house anyway? She must have been called in because we ran off. So how did they know we were gone?”

“Because Tori must have heard us making plans and warned them,” I said. I’d had the same thought last night, although I still didn’t know why Tori would bother. “What difference would it make to her if we got away?” I asked. “Hell, you’d think she’d be happy to have the whole house to herself.”

“Better to use the information to negotiate her own release,” Derek said.

“Bitch,” I muttered. He was probably right. She seemed the type to throw others under the wheels for her own benefit. “So what’s the plan?” I asked.

“First step is getting you some food,” he said.

“We don’t have time for…” I started but was cut off.

“You need your shot and if you have your shot, you need food,” Derek said. “We have to try finding Dad and Chloe. That’s going to keep us busy. We’ll start with breakfast.”

He was right. I didn’t like but he was right. 

It felt like a waste of time, but we grabbed energy bars and juice at a convenience store before sitting down on a bench to eat and make our plans.

We needed to find dad and we needed to find Chloe. We had different means of doing both, both magical and mundane. Derek couldn’t help with the magical side of things but he was better at the mundane stuff anyway.

We headed to the closest library as soon as we’d eaten and we slipped into the bathroom there. While Derek did his best to make himself a little less disreputable looking I pulled out my kit. I’d been giving myself insulin shots for years so doing so was second nature. It wasn’t something I generally wanted other people to see me do, though. It felt private, like going to the bathroom or something. That being said, having Derek there didn’t bother me. He’d been living with us by the time I was diagnosed so he’d been there with dad and I at the hospital when they were showing me how to give myself the shots in the first place.

That being said, I kept an eye on the door as I injected the insulin. The last thing we needed was someone coming in and thinking I was shooting up with some kind of drugs or something. That was trouble we could do without.

After that we split up, Derek heading to the public computers to start the process of trying to find Chloe while I headed out back to start trying to find dad.


	4. Spells and Computers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Derek was inside trying to use the internet to find addresses for Chloe and her aunt and I was out here casting a spell that did nothing."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is, like the rest of the story, unbetaed. If you spot something egregious mistake, please let me know so I can fix it.
> 
> Yes, this story is coming along fast. Faster than I'd expected, let me tell you. 
> 
> **Feedback is the the lifeblood of writing!**

**4  
Spells and Computers**

  


The spell to find dad didn’t take much in the way of preparation, that is to say I didn’t need complicated magical circles or sigils drawn on the ground and there were no rare supplies or components. What it did need was quiet since what it lacked in complicated preparations its made up for in it finicky nature. The incantation was long and the smallest mispronunciation or pause for breath in the wrong place meant a total failure. 

The alley behind the library was empty and this early in the day the park on the other side was still quiet. 

I grabbed a box from the top of the overfull dumpster and flattened it out so I could sit on the ground without messing up the only clothes I currently had.

Maybe we should have tried breaking into Lyle House to get our stuff. Derek had vetoed the idea and said we’d buy new. Probably safer in the long rung, still I had another sketchpad and pencils back at the house and my fingers itched for my art supplies.

It took longer than I would have liked to get my head clear of other thoughts so I could start. The fist time I didn’t even get halfway through the incantation before something came out wrong and I had to stop. The second time I got through it but nothing happened. I’d know if the spell worked, I could feel the draw inside from my magic answering when I cast. No draw meant a failed spell. No idea what I did wrong that time, but with a spell like this failure was more common than success. Even dad struggled with it and he was a fully trained sorcerer as opposed to me, who’d only barely begun my apprenticeship.

Three more attempts failed before my magic finally answered and the spell took.

Both Derek and I had been born here in Buffalo and we’d lived everywhere since then under false names. So, the last records the state had for Simon Bae and Derek Souza had been in Buffalo. For that reason it was back to Buffalo they had brought us when we’d been picked up. Back to where the company he’d once worked for, the people we were running from, was based.

I’d successfully cast the spell several times right after dad had disappeared and while I knew it had cast, it hadn’t led us to our dad. I’d even managed to cast it a couple of times while were were in Lyle House, hoping against hope that if I got a clear fix on where dad was, or at least what direction, Derek would give up his plan and come with me. It hadn’t worked. 

In the end, we’d decided that it was probably a proximity issue. I had to be within a certain radius of dad for the spell to lock on to him.

It was the one and only good thing about being brought to Lyle House we’d decided. If the people dad had been running from had been the ones to take him, which seemed likely, they would probably bring him back here to Buffalo. So, this was were we needed to be if the spell was going to lead us to him. Even if someone else had taken him, if he’d managed to get away from whoever was holding him, he might realize that CPS would have brought us here and come to Buffalo looking for us.

Yes, we were grasping at straws and yes, we both knew it. Unfortunately, straws were all we had.

We didn’t really know why the spell wasn’t working and were only guessing that it was a distance issue. There was another possibility, one we never discussed or even suggested. The fact was that we didn’t know if the spell would still lead us to a corpse.

It was a possibility that neither Derek nor I would even consider.

So, I cast. I cast over and over and over until Derek came to collect me.

Most libraries allowed the use of their public terminals for only an hour. Although, to be honest, the library staff probably wouldn’t have bothered me if I settled in at one of the computers for the whole afternoon. Derek, however, they’d been watching with suspicion and made sure he didn’t stay more than the allotted hour. It annoyed me, but Derek was right. Appearance mattered. I had the kind of clean-cut look that inspired trust in those around me. However, between Derek’s size, the acne and the greasy hair, he had the look of trouble. So people trusted me and generally gave him a wide berth.

Derek was right. Sometimes people were just stupid.

Still, we would have had to move around throughout the day anyway so I didn’t really matter that much right now. If we were right about my having to be close enough to dad for the spell to catch hold then casting at various points throughout the city made sense.

It wasn’t until I was sitting in yet another alley, casting over and over again in hopes of something that just how big this task was seemed to crash down on me. When we were in Lyle House I was so concerned with trying to get Derek to leave with me that I hadn’t been really thought past that. It was as if part of me had believed that if I could just get Derek to come with me, dad would be right there waiting to be found. But the reality was that we had no idea whether he was in Buffalo, we didn’t know why the spell wasn’t working and we had no real clue what to do if this gamble didn’t pay out.

I’d sat cross-legged on a patch of grass to cast and now I put my elbows on my knees and dropped my head into my hands. I knew I’d successfully cast the spell twice at this location and several times a the previous two, but nothing had happened. Derek was inside trying to use the internet to find addresses for Chloe and her aunt and I was out here casting a spell that did nothing.

I was the only one who could find dad, but I was failing and I didn’t know why.

What would we do if this didn’t work? 

I felt panic begin to form a cold knot in my stomach. Dad could be anywhere. We were only guessing that his former employers were the people who took him, but we didn’t know that. We were guessing that because they were based in Buffalo, this was where they would bring him. But we didn’t actually know that either.

In all reality, we knew practically nothing. We had built a plan of action based on guesswork and hope, and I was the only one who could make it work.

Except that I couldn’t.

Forcing myself to take first one deep breath and then another, I pushed it back. 

“You okay?” I looked up to find Derek standing over me. 

“It’s been an hour already?” I asked.

“No, I just decided to stop early,” he said, sarcasm firmly in place as always. “What’s wrong?”

I rolled my eyes but when Derek gave me a hand I let him pull me to my feet. Damn he was strong.

“Isn’t what’s wrong obvious?” I asked. “I’m sitting out here doing nothing of any use. I’m not getting anything. I’m the one who’s supposed to find dad and I’ve been trying all day, and what do I have to show for it? Nothing!”

“Then we go someplace else and keep trying,” Derek said firmly. There was no wavering in his voice or expression, like he knew without a shadow of a doubt that we’d manage this.

“And if I still keep failing?”

Derek’s certainty seemed to crack under that and he looked away. “I’m thinking,” was all he said.

In other words, he didn’t have a back up plan. He’d been putting all his faith in me.

  


*** * ***

  


I’d known that Chloe’s father had money but I hadn’t realized that they were actually rich. When Derek finally got an address it turned out to be for the freaking penthouse of an upscale, high rise apartment building.

“That’s at the top, right?” I asked.

“Usually.”

“So we can’t just peek in the window,” I muttered. “Penthouse means it’s the only apartment on the floor, too, doesn’t it?”

“Usually,” Derek said again.

“Damn.”

“For once, you’re going to need to take the slow, careful route —” Derek started.

“Never,” I shot back at him. He’d want to concoct some elaborate plan, he always did. Sometimes that was good. Other times, a more direct approach was the easier answer.

Walking into the lobby I headed straight over to the buttons for the forty-some apartments in the building and just started pushing numbers. When someone finally answered I made up some bullshit about being locked out and, boom, we we were in.

I grabbed the door and held it open for Derek.

“Coming?”

He just shook his head in exasperation but I could see his lips twitch in a reluctant smile.

We didn’t have the key cards for the elevators so the stairs it was.

Twenty flights of stairs.

By the tenth floor my legs hurt and we kept conversation was kept to a minimum to conserve our breath.

“You like Chloe, don’t you?” I asked somewhere around the eighteenth floor.

“What?” Derek asked, sounding shocked. “No. Course not.”

I didn’t look back but I could hear the scandalized tone in his voice. God forbid, Derek actually admit to liking anyone outside his family.

“I thought you did,” I answered, seeing straight through his automatic denial. “You get along okay. Most of the time anyway. Even when you don’t, you seem to like her well enough.”

“Oh, you mean —? Sure, I like her well enough. Better than the other girls you’ve gone out with.”

“Which is my point,” I said. “You didn’t want anything to do with them.” That was an understatement. Derek had made it clear that he felt that they were intrusions into our lives. Unwanted, additions. He’d never talk to them, going out of his way to avoid them. 

“It’s different with Chloe,” I continued. “She’s different. It’s different, you know?”

“You really like her,” Derek commented.

“I do,” I admitted. “I mean, sure, I’ve liked a lot of girls and you probably think this is just the same thing. But it’s not.” How to explain this in a way Derek would understand. “I like being with her. Hanging out with her. Talking to her. Getting to know her. I’m not just asking questions to make conversation. She’s different and she’s interesting, and she doesn’t know she is and that’s . . .” I glanced back at Derek to see him looking a little annoyed and gave up. I wasn’t saying any of this right. “I’m glad you two seem to get along. It’s a nice change.”

Derek just nodded and waved me forward.

It was true, though. It was different with Chloe, everything was different with her. I’d liked lots of girls but not like this. And the fact that she and Derek got along meant a lot to me. Chloe was someone I could see myself having something serious with. As another supernatural, she was someone I could be totally open with. I didn’t have to hide what I was and now she even knew what Derek was and was clearly okay with it. She was someone who could become a real part of our lives.

I knew Derek didn’t really understand. He’d never liked a girl to my knowledge. In fact, he’d been so stand offish with them that dad had even sat him down one day and asked him if he was gay. I wished I’d been there for that discussion since Derek’s expression would have been priceless. Not that Derek was homophobic or anything and he had to know that dad and I wouldn’t have cared if he was gay. He insisted he wasn’t, though. Just that he hadn’t met a girl he liked yet. Still, it meant that he didn’t really get what it was to like a girl so I doubted he’d understand why this, with Chloe, was different.

When we finally did get to the top floor the door from the stairwell to the floor itself was locked. I looked like it was the automatic type, you could open it from one direction only without the key. That would have been a problem, if I hadn’t had Derek with me.

A snap of the lock and we were in a short hallway with entrances to the stairwell, elevator and the single door to the penthouse apartment.

This was the part of things that I was best at. It was really dumb that people trusted me and not Derek based on our looks. For instance, I am by far the fluent liar of the two of us. Derek could lie with the best of them, don’t get me wrong. However, he’s not great with coming up with convincing lies and he’s not very good at elaborating on the spot. I am, and I totally admit it, fantastic at both. The fact is, of the two of us, I’m probably the less trustworthy one. 

However, I look like the nice kid next door while Derek looks more like the bully from down the block. So, Derek hid in the stairwell with the door cracked just enough so that he could clearly hear while I knocked on the door.

The door was answered quickly by a confused looking middle aged woman. 

“How did —?”

I didn’t let her get the question out, cutting her off and holding my hand out.

“I’m Tad,” I said cheerfully. “I go to school with Chloe. You must be Annette.”

“How did you get up here?”

I dropped my hand, which she had ignored. Chloe had said that Annette wasn’t the most sociable of people and she was certainly living up to that.

“I buzzed, but no one answered. So I came up the stairs,” I said shrugging, as if it was no big deal to walk up twenty stories.

She looked toward the stairwell door, clearly confused. “You aren’t supposed to be —”

I cut her off again. I didn’t want her deciding to take too close a look at the door to the stairway. 

“Is Chloe here?” I asked hopefully, speaking louder than strictly necessary. I didn’t know how large the apartment was and I wanted to make sure that if Chloe was here, she’d hear me. “I haven’t seen her at school for over a week. No one seems to know where she is. I texted her, but she didn’t get back to me. I wanted to ask her to the dance next week, and I, uh, well, I hope that’s not why she’s avoiding me . . .” I gave a kind of forced laugh, doing my best to look sheepish.

“Chloe’s not here,” she said shortly. Then, as if realizing that I would just follow up with asking when Chloe would be home, she continued. “She’s in the hospital.”

I widened my eyes, making sure I looked suitably shocked and worried. “Really? Geez, I didn’t know. Which one is it? I’ll go visit her.”

“I don’t think —” she started.

“You can ask her first, make sure it’s okay,” I said, talking over her again. “I’m not trying to bug her. I just — Can you tell her Tad Simon came by, he’s worried about her and he’d really like to see her?”

“I’ll let her know,” she said before shutting the door in my face.

“I don’t think she’s there,” I told Derek, rejoining him in the stairwell. “If she was, she’d have heard me. If the housekeeper knows where she is, hopefully she’ll give Chloe the message and she’ll understand it.”

“She’ll understand it,” Derek assured me.

I sighed. “I know. And —” Suddenly I remembered the one thing we hadn’t done all day. “Shit! The rendezvous point. We need to check—”

“I was waiting for sundown,” Derek said. “We’ll go now and leave a note telling them when we’ll be back.”

“Good idea.”


	5. Lines of Communication

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The change itself was something he never discussed with me except in the broadest of terms and I’d never forced the issue. After all, we’d years before he had to face that. We had plenty of time.
> 
> Except that time had just run out."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unbeted as before, but damn I'm HAPPY with how this chapter turned out. Here's hoping you agree.
> 
> You may have noticed that I've upped the chapter count. I found that I couldn't fit the story into five chapters after all, so there will be a sixth.
> 
> If you've followed this series for any length of time you know that this speed of writing and posting is not normal for me. No idea why this story is just flowing out of me the way it is. I'm just enjoying the ride. I hope you guys are too.

**5  
Lines of Communication**

  


Luckily, you didn’t have to have a key to use the elevator going down. After climbing twenty stories, it was a relief not to have to walk back down them.

A man was waiting for the elevator when we got off. He didn’t even glance at us as we passed him, focused on his phone conversation.

“I planned to surprise her at Lyle House, but she’s not there. No one’s there.”

That caught our attention and Derek and I both looked back. He was still talking he got on the elevator.

“If they had to move the kids, someone should have notified me. I’m her father, as much as you —”

His voice was cut off as the door closed.

I turned to Derek. “Shit. Was that —?”

“Her dad,” Derek confirmed. “He just got back to find Lyle House empty. He’s trying to contact her aunt.”

Chloe’s dad! He’d know where she would go, wouldn’t he?

“Then we have to —”

As I headed back towards the stairs, Derek caught my arm.

“Whatever you’re thinking, we can’t do it. He’s going to raise hell about her being gone. If her aunt sent her back to Lyle House, she should tell him, but she’s obviously not returning his calls. Which seems weird.”

“They don’t get along,” I told him.

“Huh?”

“Her dad and her aunt don’t get along,” I explained. “She wanted to take custody of Chloe after her mom died. Her father wouldn’t give her up. Her aunt thinks she’s being neglected, with her dad gone all the time. Chloe doesn’t seem neglected, though.”

Derek frowned, looking after Chloe’s father.

“He doesn’t know anything about the supernatural world,” he said finally. “How do you think he’d react if we tried to explain what exactly is going on?”

I glanced back towards the elevators again. I didn’t like it, but Derek was right. Chloe had said that he didn’t like putting her in Lyle House but that he’d believed that it was the best thing for her. He believed what the doctors told him, why wouldn’t he after all? He’d want her put right back in another group home or a hospital.

“How do you know Chloe’s aunt isn’t returning her dad’s calls?” I asked.

“No voice on the other end of the line,” he explained. “He was leaving a message, not talking to her.”

“I wonder if Chloe is with her.” 

“I haven’t been able to get an address for a Lauren Fellows yet,” Derek said as we left the building. “If we don’t catch up with them tonight, I’ll focus on that tomorrow.”

Well, at least we had a viable plan for finding _someone_.

  


*** * ***

  


Sunset was still more than two hours away and Derek insisted that we eat and get a few basics before we headed to the warehouse. The plan was to leave a note for Chloe if she wasn’t there and for that we needed a few things. Like something to write on and something to write with.

We wanted to conserve our money since we had no idea how long this search would take. So, we stopped at a dollar store before heading to the closest McDonald’s and ordering off the dollar menu.

I cleaned up as best I could in the bathroom while Derek ordered and then I ate while he washed up. When I sat down at the table and noticed just how many empty hamburger wrappers there already were, I felt a twinge of guilt.

While he was gone I picked at the food my brother had ordered for me rather than inhaling it the way he clearly had his own. The fact was, that even knowing I needed to eat I just didn’t have an appetite. As the day went on and I was met with one failure after another my interest in food diminished. The knot of panic in my gut seemed to be taking up all the room, leaving no space for anything else. 

I was doing my best to keep upbeat for Derek. I didn’t want him worrying any more than he already was. It wasn’t easy. The fact that Derek insisted on buying actual art supplies rather than a cheap pad of paper and a cheap pen, suggested that I wasn’t all that successful. The dollar store hadn’t had much in the way of art supplies but Derek managed to find a decent quality notebook, art pencils and a set of colored markers and insisted we get them.

As always, Derek was thinking only of me and what I needed. He hadn’t once complained today that he wasn’t getting the amount of food his body required. And here I was only just remembering now that Derek needed a lot more to eat than I did. He had that crazy werewolf metabolism and burned through anything and everything he ate very fast. He hadn’t got enough to eat today and I didn’t even notice until now, with the empty hamburger wrappers sitting there like an accusation.

All day, he’d been making sure I got what I needed and I hadn’t once stopped to think about what he needed.

“You need to eat.”

_Case in point,_ I thought, as Derek took the seat across from me. 

Within ten minutes he demolished the rest of his dinner.

“So do you, obviously,” I shot back. Then I nodded toward the counter. “Get more.” I pressed onward when he looked like he might object. “A couple more dollars won’t make much difference and I know you’re still hungry. We aren’t in Lyle House anymore. No one is paying any attention. No one cares if you eat enough for four guys.”

For a long moment, Derek hesitated as if he wanted to say something. Then he got up and went to order more food.

I wasn’t hungry, but he was right. I needed to eat. I certainly wouldn’t be any good to anyone if I ended up in the hospital because I’d neglected my blood sugar levels.

Derek was silent as he ate but that was normal. He wasn’t a talker when there was food on the table, he never had been. I sometimes wondered if that was simply because of just how seriously he took food or whether it was a holdover from when he was little. I didn’t know much about what life had been like for him prior to his coming to live with us. Dad said that he used to take me to play with Derek when he was still living in the lab but I’d been too young to remember. Still, I got the feeling that it wasn’t a warm and loving environment and I really doubted that family dinners where everyone talked about their day played a major role there.

Whenever I asked Derek about it all he’d say was that he didn’t remember much about the lab. Then again, he’d been pretty young too so that made sense.

He never talked about it. Then again, there were a lot of things Derek didn’t like to talk about.

Unfortunately, one of those things was something we really needed to talk about and we needed to talk about it now.

No matter how many times I made sure Derek knew I was there for him to talk to about his race, he rarely took me up on it. The change itself was something he never discussed with me except in the broadest of terms and I’d never forced the issue. After all, we’d years before he had to face that. We had plenty of time.

Except that time had just run out.

For whatever reason his body was trying to change early and that attempted change had failed. I had no idea what that meant or didn’t mean. All I was sure of was that I needed to know everything if I was going to help him through this.

I could admit that that scared me almost more than all the rest.

_Dad promised that he’d be there for this!_ a little voice kept yelling in my head. I would have given anything to have dad that right then.

I didn’t know how to help Derek but I did know that the first step would forcing him to tell me exactly what had happened.

However, talking about lycanthropy in the middle of a busy fast food place was not a good idea. Sure, people would think we were talking about a television show or video game if they did overhear us. That being said, it was always best not to draw attention to yourself when you had things to hide.

So, it wasn’t until we left that I finally spoke up.

“Look…” I hesitated, trying to find the right way to broach the subject. I was usually good with words. At the moment, not so much. Not that it mattered, I decided. Directness usually worked best with my brother anyway.

“I need to know exactly what happened last night and I need to know what you know about the change.”

Derek didn’t look at me, staring straight ahead as he walked.

“I told you what happened,” he said flatly.

“Yeah, the Cliff’s Notes version,” I responded. There was no way I was allowing him to back out of this conversation. “I need to know the details.”

When he didn’t respond I grabbed his arm and stepped in front of him, forcing him to stop and look at me.

“We’re in this together, bro. I’m with you, 110 percent. I’ve never pressed you to talk about it because it wasn’t pressing, we had time. Now we don’t. So, I need you to talk to me.”

Derek looked away, but I could see in his expression that he knew I was right. He also knew that when I really dug in on something, I didn’t give up. I’d just keep at him until he talked. He gave a kind of half-shrug and nodded, waving me forward so I’d keep going.

Reluctantly, he explained as we walked. The muscle spasms, which he’d honestly believed were the result of not getting enough exercise, had started a couple of weeks ago. They’d got exponentially worse over time and was joined by intense itching and a fever that came and went over the last couple days. 

“If you’d have told me…” I started, but he cut me off.

“I’m not going to apologize,” he snapped. “You needed to leave and you wouldn’t have if I’d told you.”

“Damn right I wouldn’t have left!” I took a deep breath and tried to force myself to calm down. We needed to talk, not fight.

I stopped where I was and waited until Derek stopped as well and turned to me.

“Are we a team or not?” I asked.

“This isn’t about that,” Derek snapped.

“The hell it isn’t,” I shot back. “Are we a team or not?”

Derek looked away and it was a long moment before he took a deep breath and let it out.

“Yes.”

“Do you trust me?” I asked.

The incredulous look that that earned me would have been funny under any other circumstances.

“Is that a trick question?” he asked. Then he shook his head and I could see some of the fight go out of him before he looked straight at me. “There’s no one I trust more,” he told me. Frowning he added, “well, maybe dad. Now can we get to the warehouse sometime tonight?”

Mission focused as always. I’d known actually stopping and and refusing to continue before he agreed to talk would make him more likely to capitulate, if only to get me moving.

We started walking again and I considered all the questions I still had. What came out was not one of the more important ones, not really. It was important to me, though. 

“Did it hurt?”

“Yes,” Derek answered after a lengthy pause where I could almost see him fighting with his reluctance to admit weakness. It wasn’t that he was obsessed with being the strongest or anything like that, but ever since we’d dad went missing, Derek had tried to step up as the older brother and take care of things. The fact that he was less than a year older than me didn’t matter. He was the big brother and he took that seriously. He always had. 

I was just starting to think I’d have to pull the story out of him bit by bit when he finally started to talk. It wasn’t comfortable listening. Between the fever and the vomiting, he’d been too weak to get help even before he felt his bones beginning to crack and attempt to reform themselves in another shape. I felt my own gorge rise as he described what had happened.

He would have faced that alone if it hadn’t been for Chloe. She’d sat by him, even put her hand on his arm and kept it there no matter the fur that came and went. She’d encountered yet another thing she’d hadn’t known about and instead of freaking out, she’d calmly stayed by Derek’s side so he didn’t have to face his change alone.

If I hadn’t already liked Chloe more than any other girl I’d ever met, I would have at that point. She really was something special.

“Any idea why this is happening now?” I asked.

Derek shook his head. “Not a clue. Hopefully, it’s a one off. Clearly my body isn’t ready to actually change yet, it felt like it was fighting it every step of the way.”

“You are developing fast,” I commented. “I mean, you’re already taller than dad and if you tried you could easily pass for eighteen, get the acne under control and you could probably pass for twenty if you had to. Maybe you’re just an early bloomer.”

“Dad was certain,” he said. “Every source of information he had was clear that the change never happens this early. Eighteen is considered young for your first change, twenty or even older is more common.”

“Well, obviously it is too soon or you would have managed to change, right?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted, frustration clear in his tone. “I guess so.”

“And now?” I asked. “How do you feel now?”

“Fine,” he admitted. “No fever, no muscle spasms, no itching…” The seriousness of the moment was utterly lost when Derek reached up and casually scratched his nose. For a moment, I thought he’d done it as a joke before I saw his expression as he stopped, realizing what he was doing. A reflexive gesture with the best timing.

I couldn’t help it, I started laughing. Laughing so hard I had to stop for a moment to catch my breath. By then Derek was laughing nearly as hard.

As we laughed some underlying tension that had been there for the last three months seemed to dissipate. No, everything wasn’t suddenly all better. Life never works that way, unfortunately. Still, it felt in that moment like I was truly getting my brother back. There was still all that crap about his so-called diagnosis to deal with, but at least he was talking to me. He was letting me in again. I couldn’t make everything all better for him and I was still worried about this early change, just as I knew he was. 

But just maybe, if he let me help shoulder some of the burden it wouldn’t be as bad for him. If he let me, maybe I could help. If nothing else, I wanted to be the one sitting beside him while he fought his way through this. For the first time in a long time, I felt like he would let me. I just prayed that when I did, I wouldn’t start throwing up myself as soon as he started.


	6. United

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "There was no underlying tension, no ghosts of arguments past hanging between us... It was like we’d somehow found our balance with each other again."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this is probably the fastest I've written a story in... YEARS. Seriously, it's just flowed out of me and damn, it's been a joy. The original story of 'Divided' was mostly just chronicling what Derek and Simon did during the those two days. I wanted to give the story something more, some side plot to allow for character growth. It was also really fun to write from Simon's perspective, to see Derek and their relationship as he sees it. I hope that you guys have enjoyed reading it as much as I've enjoyed writing it.
> 
> Again, it is unbetaed so sorry for any goofs.
> 
> Now, I do not have the ability to start the next story right away. It's been a while since I last read 'The Awakening' and I'm going to have to reread it again before beginning on the rewrite. (What's a tragedy, right? *g*) However, I'm pretty focused on this series right now so I think I'll get right to that. 
> 
> I do have a favor to ask, however. I haven't yet come up with a good title for the second story. 'Awakened' just isn't going to work. I've toyed with 'Runaways' or 'Fugitives' but I don't really like those either. Any ideas? I'd really appreciate thoughts and suggestions.
> 
> Thanks again for all your support. And a special thanks goes out to BriEva, who's unending feedback has really helped me get this story out there.

**6  
United**

  


There was no sign of Chloe or Rae when we got to the warehouse and Derek said there were no recent scent, so they hadn’t been here all day.

That worried me. I hoped like hell they were hold up someplace safe and waiting until after dark to come back like we had. I wasn’t sure, though. Who had she called? Could they be trusted? Chloe wasn’t stupid but she was warm-hearted and I couldn’t help but worry that she might have trusted the wrong person.

“Keep watch,” I told Derek. “I’ll leave a note for her.”

After he left to act as look out I pulled out my art supplies. The last thing I wanted was to leave something obvious. Leaving a note addressed to Chloe someplace easily seen telling her that we’d been here and when we’d be back would be a great way of giving ourselves away. Not that it looked like anyone else had been in here anytime recently, but I didn’t want to take any chances.

Chloe had seen the comic book I was working on and we’d discussed my art several times. So I was pretty sure I knew how to get her attention without tipping off anyone else. 

I chose a crate and crouched down in front of it, before setting to work.

I loved drawing, always had. Focusing on that helped to calm me, pushing back the lingering panic I’d been fighting off all afternoon. Taking the pictures in my mind and putting them down on paper, or wood like I was drawing on now, had always been a source of joy for me. It wasn’t even something I really chose. There had always been images in my mind and it was like I needed to put them out there. The creative spark, dad called it. It was like I had to draw or paint or color or something. 

For a while, after we’d ended up in Lyle House, even my art seemed to lack the vibrancy it had had before. I knew that Derek had worried about that a lot. It probably should have worried me as well, but I’d found it hard to care. I wasn’t sure exactly what had changed. Chloe had something to do with it, but it wasn’t just her. It was like some fog had begun lifting and suddenly the world was bright again, making my fingers itch to put it all down on paper. I lost myself in my work a little, marveling at the return of the joy I’d always had before when creating.

“Are you almost done?” Derek demanded, coming back to check on me.

He frowned and before he could demand to know what I was up to I started explaining.

“No,” I told him. “I did not think this was a good time to engage in a little creative graffiti. There are too many places in here to stick a note, especially if we don’t want the bad guys finding it. I figured I’d mark this box and put the note underneath.”

“Will Chloe know you did that?” he asked, not sounding terribly impressed.

“I hope so. She’s seen my sketches. We talked about it. You might want to go back on guard duty. I’m almost done with this, but I still need to do the note.”

Looking annoyed Derek nonetheless headed back to the entrance without comment. He didn’t get it, but then he’d never been the creative type and art just didn’t seem to speak to him. I wasn’t sure he even really liked my art all that much. Not that he’d ever said anything disparaging about it. In fact, he’d helped me a few times by pointing out plot holes in my comic and helping me fill them in. Then again, he’d support me no matter what. If I loved it, then he valued it, his lack of artistic appreciation not withstanding.

Derek cared about what made dad and I happy. I just wished he would realize that one of the things that made us happy was seeing _him_ happy.

I pushed the thoughts aside for now and focused on the task at hand, devising a note Chloe would understand while not making what I was saying obvious to anyone else. Considering for a moment I figured out exactly what I needed to do.

A ghost adored the top of the page, followed by a drawing of Arnold Schwarzenegger as The Terminator, followed by a cloud of fog with a lightening bolt through it.

When I was done I was pleased with the result and called out to Derek to let him know I was finished. When I showed him the page he scowled.

“Okay. You decorated it. Nice. Now add the message.”

“This is the message,” I told him. I pointed to the three pictures in succession. “Chloe. I’ll be back. Simon. That way, anyone accidentally finding the note won’t understand it. But Chloe will. She’ll get the Terminator reference because —”

“She loves movies,” he finished for me. “It’s a good idea, but...” 

He took the paper and an a pencil and wrote in block letters 10 AM on the top of the page.

“Hey!” I snatched the paper back from him. I’d been so proud of it, an entire message without a single word.

“She needs to know when to meet us,” Derek said.

“You just ruined —” 

“It’s fine,” Derek said, cutting me off. “I’m sure she’ll still cherish it forever.”

He grabbed the paper back from me and after folding it in half he set it on a crate before setting the crate I’d drawn on over it.

“Let’s get out of here and find someplace to sleep.”

“The note was fine as it was,” I muttered, but followed him anyway.

  


*** * ***

  


Derek insisted on stopping at a store to grab some juice in case my blood sugar dropped in the night. Unfortunately, by then night had fallen and finding someplace to sleep wasn’t easy. The decent places were already taken and in the end we bedded down in an alley he found that wasn’t too dirty and didn’t smell. We were out the wind and the night wasn’t as cold as the one before so I didn’t see it as a problem. Derek grumbled about it, though, and promised several times to find something better for tomorrow night. 

I’d have argued with him, but the minute I laid down I was out. A long day and no sleep the night before had left me a lot more tired than I’d realized.

If I dreamed, I didn’t remember it. I slept so deeply it was just black until Derek shook me awake at nine-thirty having over slept himself.

By hauling ass we were only just able to get to the warehouse by ten. Unfortunately, there was no sign or scent of Chloe. 

The message was where we’d left it, undisturbed.

Derek wouldn’t let us wait longer than an hour, insisting that I had to eat. I would have argued to stay longer but I realized that I wasn’t the only one who needed food. I’d been so caught up in myself yesterday I’d ignored what Derek needed. I promised myself that I wouldn’t do that again today.

There was, however, one problem. When we’d stopped by the store last night there was one vital thing we’d forgotten. Deodorant. I was okay, but Derek… not so much. Fact was that he smelled. I’d never known anyone who had as much trouble with BO as my brother. He kept himself clean, cleaner than anyone else I knew. It didn’t seem to matter, though. Ever since puberty kicked in he’d take a shower and within no time he’d be greasy and smell like he hadn’t bathed in weeks. I didn’t get it.

The problem was that we were trying _not_ to be noticed and smelling like he did, people were noticing.

So, Derek stayed outside the small convenience store while I ran in to grab food and deodorant.

When I got what I needed I heard the door open behind me and glanced back automatically. Derek was waving toward the newspaper stand, his face pale. Something was wrong. Glancing toward the papers I almost dropped my armful of stuff. Chloe’s picture stared back at me from the front page.

What the…?

I grabbed a newspaper and bought that along with the rest before nearly running out of the store with my bag of purchases.

A small urban park, or rather a green space where a building had clearly been until fairly recently, was just down from the shop and we headed there.

I pulled out the newspaper the moment we got there, suddenly far more interested in that than the food I’d bought.

“Local teen missing. $500,000 reward,” the headline screamed at me. I wanted to scream back at it.

“Shit,” I muttered. This wasn’t good.

“Check your blood sugar,” Derek told me. “Dammit, this is exactly the kind of stupid thing I was praying her father wouldn’t do.”

“It’s not stupid,” I objected, as I pulled out my kit. I was so used to testing my blood sugar all the time that I barely felt the prick of the needle anymore. “He’s really worried about her,” I told him. “And he’s doing everything he can to find her.”

“Which is only going to freak out the people looking for her,” he shot back. “They’ll step up their efforts to find her and make sure her dad never does.”

“He doesn’t know that,” I reminded him.

“But he should know that this is only going to hamper an investigation,” he told me. I could hear the clear frustration in his voice. “The cops won’t have time to look for Chloe. They’ll be too busy processing leads from everyone who spots a blond girl on the street. I bet his lawyer advised him against this. I bet the cops did, too.”

“He’s worried,” I said again. “He’s not thinking straight. He wants to use whatever he has to get Chloe back, and what he has is money. It’s a poor choice, but it’s not stupid.”

“Whatever,” he muttered. “The point is that now the whole city knows we’ve disappeared.”

I was reading the article over his shoulder, though and pointed something out further down. 

“They only know Chloe has,” I said. “There’s nothing in here about any of —” Then another name caught my eye further down and I kept reading.

“Rachelle Rodgers?” Derek demanded. “It says the police interviewed Rae.”

That made no sense. Rae was with Chloe.

“Maybe Dr. Davidoff made Tori say she was Rae,” I suggested. “Pretend to be Chloe’s roommate.” 

Derek shook his head. “Too complicated. They’d just have Tori be herself and claim she was friends with Chloe. This must mean Dr. Davidoff has Rae. Let’s just hope that doesn’t mean he has Chloe, too.”

“How would they have got Rae, though?” I asked. “Think they split up?”

“I don’t know,” Derek muttered. “It doesn’t make sense and that worries me.”

He wasn’t the only one it worried.

  


*** * ***

  


The day passed the same as the one before. We moved around the city, Derek searching for any hint of dad online while I cast, over and over and over.

By that afternoon, we’d exhausted every library in the city and very nearly every internet cafe as well.

Nothing.

Somehow, though, it wasn’t as bad. I was worried, don’t get me wrong. Very worried. About dad, about Chloe, about us…

Still, over lunch and dinner Derek and I talked, actually talked like we hadn’t in months. There was no underlying tension, no ghosts of arguments past hanging between us. Derek even talked a bit about what little information on the change that dad had been able to dig up. It was like we’d somehow found our balance with each other again.

It didn’t magically relieve all the worry and stress of our situation. What it did do, though, was unknot that cold panic that had taken hold yesterday. Maybe it was stupid to think that just because we were together, that we really were a team again, that everything would be okay. Okay, yes, it probably was stupid. That being said, knowing I really did have my brother back, all the way, made me feel that we could and would figure this out. 

Derek was as good as his word and found an abandoned building for us to stay in that night. Neither of us slept much. We stayed up later than we probably should have just talking. We hadn’t had this much to say to each other in a long time. The worry was still there, however, and we both ended up sleeping fitfully and were up before the alarm on my watch went off at seven.

“I’m going to change the note,” Derek told me as we headed back to the warehouse after breakfast. “I’m going to add PM as well so that we’ll check for her twice a day instead of only once.”

“Sounds good.”

What he didn’t say anything about was how long we’d keep doing this. 

If Chloe wasn’t there today, or tomorrow or the day after…

The fact that Rae had been captured raised the possibility that Chloe had been as well. 

It was something Derek and I had discussed as we’d lay in the dark of the abandoned building. If the people from Lyle House had found Chloe, why wouldn’t they tell her father? It didn’t make any sense. Which meant that the most likely scenario was that they’d split up, Rae being caught and Chloe getting away. The fact that that meant that Chloe was now alone was not a comforting thought. She was smart and resourceful, but she was also a small fifteen year old with no way of defending herself. The kinds of things that could happen to a girl alone on the streets didn’t bare thinking of.

We arrived well ahead of time, Derek wanting the chance to scope things out before we went in. By nine on a weekday morning the factory grounds were alive with people and we couldn’t take the chance of being seen.

There were other industrial buildings around the factory area but outside the fence and we found a place behind one to hunker down and wait.

We hadn’t been there long, however, when Derek’s head jerked up, his nostrils flaring.

“Smell someone?” I asked, suddenly excited.

“Just that guard, I think,” he told me, dashing my momentary hopes. “Hold on.” 

He jogged down to the end of the building and peered around, head raised to better smell the breeze.

He was frowning when he came back over to me.

“I’m not sure what’s up,” he said. “But the guard seemed to be patrolling near the warehouse and I think I might have seen a cop.”

“That does not sound good,” I told him.

“It might be nothing,” he said. “But I need to get a better look before we try going in there. Stay here.”

I sighed but unfortunately, this kind of thing really was something Derek was much better at than I was.

So, I settled in to wait. 

And wait.

And _wait…_

I glanced at my watch several times, watching as ten came and went. He’d been gone almost a half an hour when I decided that I wasn’t waiting anymore. He should have been back by now. 

The panic that had faded from my gut was back at the though that Derek might have been caught. 

I carefully made my way around the building we’d taken shelter behind and moved closer to the factory. I could see the warehouse from here but there didn’t seem to be any activity around it. Ducking behind some bushes I got a look at the back gate. The guard was there, alone. No cops in sight. If he’d been patrolling around the warehouse he was back at his station now and he didn’t look worried. In fact, he was reading a paper with every sign of ease.

“Simon!” the loud whisper from behind me had me turning with a scowl.

“Where the hell have you been?” I demanded as Derek jogged up to me.

“I caught Chloe’s scent and didn’t want to lose it by going back for you.”

“You did? Where is she?”

“She’s were you were supposed to be,” Derek told me. “She got the note and was here looking for us.”

I didn’t wait for more of an explanation than that and dashed back towards the building I’d been hiding behind before.

Chloe’s back was to me when I swung around the corner. She was here. She was safe.

Walking up behind her I poked her in the back, making her jump about ten feet.

“Still jumpy, I see,” I said and she spun around to face me.

I just grinned. I couldn’t help it. I was so glad to see her. All the things that could have happened to her had been playing in the back of my mind. Seeing her here clearly unharmed was… well, she’d never looked more beautiful, that was for sure.

“Got my note, I hear,” I said.

She smiled back at me and pulled the folded paper out of her pocket and waved it at me.

I took it from her and tucked it back into her jacket pocket before taking her hand. I didn’t know what I was doing exactly or what wanted to do. Well, okay, no. I wanted to kiss her. I didn’t think that this was the right time or place, though. I ran my thumb over her knuckles, watching her face as she blushed.

“I’m really glad you found us,” she said, voice full of emotion.

I squeezed her hand and leaned down to whisper in her ear.

“I —” That was as far as I got before I that someone else was walking up behind her and my head snapped up.

“Hey, Simon,” Tori said, eyeing my closeness to Chloe with displeasure.

“What is she doing here?” I demanded.

“Ask her,” Derek told me, jerking his thumb at Chloe. “I’m not getting any answers.”

“It’s a long story,” Chloe said.

“Then it’ll have to wait,” Derek decreed. “We need to get away from here.”

“But is everything okay?” I asked Chloe softly, eyeing Tori. After what she pulled with the crawlspace I didn’t trust her.

“No,” Tori snapped. “I kidnapped her and forced her to escape with me. I’ve been using her as a human shield against those guys with guns, and I was just about to strangle her and leave her body here to throw them off my trail. But then you showed up and foiled my evil plans. Lucky for you, though. You get to rescue poor little Chloe again and win her undying gratitude.”

“Undying gratitude?” I looked at Chloe who blushed again. “Cool. Does that come with eternal servitude? If so, I like my eggs sunnyside up.”

“I’ll remember that,” Chloe said, smiling.

That was too much small talk for Derek it seemed. 

“Enough yapping, Move out.”

We moved.


End file.
